A
piano is a musical instrument classified as a keyboard, percussion,
or string instrument, depending on the system of classification used.
Playing the piano is widespread in western music for solo performance,
chamber music, and accompaniment, and is popular as an aid to composing
and rehearsal.

The
piano produces sound by striking steel strings with felt hammers.
Vibrations are transmitted through the bridges to the soundboard.

The
word piano is a shortened form of the word pianoforte, which
is seldom used except in formal language and derived from the original Italian
name for the instrument, gravicèmbalo col piano e forte (literally
harpsichord with soft and loud). This refers to the ability of the
piano to produce notes at different volumes depending on how hard the keys
are pressed.

A
"baby grand" piano, with the lid up

As
a keyboard stringed instrument, the piano is similar to the clavichord and
harpsichord. These three instruments differ in their mechanisms of sound
production. In a harpsichord, strings are plucked by quills or something
similar. In the clavichord, strings are struck by tangents, which remain
in contact with the string. In a piano, the strings are struck by hammers,
which immediately rebound, leaving the string to vibrate freely.

Early
history

Although
there were various crude earlier attempts to make stringed keyboard
instruments with struck strings (see Pollens reference below, Chap. 1), it
is widely considered that the piano was invented by a single individual:
Bartolomeo Cristofori of Padua, Italy. It is not known exactly when
Cristofori first built a piano, but an inventory made by his employers,
the Medici family, indicates the existence of a piano by the year 1700.
The three Cristofori pianos that survive today date from the 1720s.

Like
many other inventions, the piano was founded on earlier technological
innovations. In particular, it benefited from centuries of work on the
harpsichord, which had shown the most effective ways to construct the
case, soundboard, bridge, and keyboard. Cristofori, himself an expert
harpsichord maker, was well acquainted with this body of knowledge.

Cristofori's
great success was in solving, without any prior example, the fundamental
mechanical problem of piano design: the hammers must strike the string,
but not touch it once they have struck (which would damp the sound).
Moreover, the hammers must return to their rest position without bouncing
violently, and it must be possible to repeat a note rapidly. Cristofori's
piano action served as a model for the many different approaches to piano
actions that followed. Cristofori's early instruments were made with thin
strings and were much quieter than the modern piano. Compared to the
clavichord (the only previous keyboard instrument capable of dynamic
nuance), however, they were considerably louder and had more sustaining
power.

Cristofori's
new instrument remained relatively unknown until an Italian writer,
Scipione Maffei, wrote an enthusiastic article about it (1711), including
a diagram of the mechanism. This article was widely distributed, and most
of the next generation of piano builders started their work because of
reading it. One of these builders was Gottfried Silbermann, better known
as an organ builder. Silbermann's pianos were virtually direct copies of
Cristofori's, with one important addition: Silbermann invented the
forerunner of the modern damper pedal, which lifts all the dampers from
the strings at once.

Silbermann
showed Bach one of his early instruments in the 1730s, who did not like it
at that time, claiming that the higher notes were too soft to allow a full
dynamic range. Although this earned him some animosity from Silbermann,
the criticism was apparently heeded. Bach did approve of a later
instrument he saw in 1747, and even served as an agent in selling
Silbermann's pianos.

Piano
making flourished during the late 18th century in the Viennese school,
which included Johann Andreas Stein (who worked in Augsburg, Germany) and
the Viennese makers Nannette Stein (daughter of Johann Andreas) and Anton
Walter. Viennese-style pianos were built with wooden frames, two strings
per note, and had leather-covered hammers. It was for such instruments
that Mozart composed his concertos and sonatas, and replicas of them are
built today for use in authentic-instrument performance of his music. The
pianos of Mozart's day had a softer, clearer tone than today's pianos,
with less sustaining power. The term fortepiano is nowadays often
used to distinguish the 18th-century instrument from later pianos.

Piano
hammers

Development
of the modern piano

In
the lengthy period lasting from about 1790 to 1860, the Mozart-era piano
underwent tremendous changes, which led to the modern form of the
instrument. This evolution was in response to a consistent preference by
composers and pianists for a more powerful, sustained piano sound. It was
also a response to the ongoing Industrial Revolution, which made available
technological resources like high-quality steel for strings and precision
casting for the production of iron frames.

Over
time, piano playing became a more strenuous and muscle-taxing activity, as
the force needed to depress the keys, as well as the length of key travel,
was increased. The tonal range of the piano was also increased, from the
five octaves of Mozart's day to the 7 1/3 (or even more) octaves found on
modern pianos.

In
the first part of this era, technological progress owed much to the
English firm of Broadwood, which already had a strong reputation for the
splendour and powerful tone of its harpsichords. Over time, the Broadwood
instruments grew progressively larger, louder, and more robustly
constructed. The Broadwood firm, which sent pianos to both Haydn and Beethoven,
was the first to build pianos with a range of more than five octaves: five
octaves and a fifth during the 1790s, six octaves by 1810 (in time for
Beethoven to use the extra notes in his later works), and seven octaves by
1820. The Viennese makers followed these trends. The two schools, however,
used different piano actions: the Broadwood one more robust, the Viennese
more sensitive.

By
the 1820s, the center of innovation had shifted to Paris,
where the Érard firm manufactured pianos used by Chopin
and Liszt. In 1821, Sébastien Érard invented the double escapement
action, which permitted a note to be repeated even if the key had not yet
risen to its maximum vertical position, a great benefit for rapid playing.
As revised by Henri Herz about 1840, the double escapement action
ultimately became the standard action for grand pianos, used by all
manufacturers.

Some
other important technical innovations of this era include the following:

Use
of three strings rather than two for all but the lower notes

The
iron frame; the iron frame, also called the "plate",
sits atop the soundboard, and serves as the primary bulwark against
the force of string tension. The iron frame was the ultimate solution
to the problem of structural integrity as the strings were gradually
made thicker, tenser, and more numerous (in a modern grand the total
string tension can approach 20 tons). The single piece cast iron frame
was patented in 1825 in Boston by Alpheus Babcock, combining the metal
hitch pin plate (1821, claimed by Broadwood on behalf of Samuel Hervé)
and resisting bars (Thom and Allen, 1820, but also claimed by
Broadwood and Érard). Babcock later worked for the Chickering &
Mackays firm which patented the first full iron frame for grand pianos
(1843). Composite forged metal frames were preferred by many European
makers until the American system was fully adopted by the early 20th
century.

The
sostenuto pedal (see below), invented in 1844 by Jean Louis
Boisselot and improved by the Steinway firm in 1874.

The
over strung scale, also called "cross-stringing"; the
strings are placed in a vertically overlapping slanted arrangement,
with two heights of bridges on the soundboard, rather than just one.
This permits larger, but not necessarily longer, strings to fit within
the case of the piano. Over stringing was invented by Jean-Henri Pape
during the 1820s, and first patented for use in grand pianos in the
United States by Henry Steinway Jr. in 1859.

‘‘‘Duplexes’’’
or aliquot scales; In 1872 Theodore Steinway patented a system to
control different components of string vibrations by tuning their
secondary parts in octave relationships with the sounding lengths.
Similar systems developed by Blüthner (1872), as well as Taskin
(1788), and Collard (1821) used more distinctly ringing undamped
vibrations to modify tone.

Today's
upright, grand, and concert grand pianos attained their present forms by
the end of the 19th century. Improvements have been made in manufacturing
processes, and many individual details of the instrument continue to
receive attention.

Some
early pianos had shapes and designs that are no longer in use.

The
square piano had horizontal strings arranged diagonally across the
rectangular case above the hammers and with the keyboard set in the long
side, it is variously attributed to Silbermann and Frederici and was
improved by Petzold and Babcock. Built in quantity through the 1890s (in
the United States), Steinway's celebrated iron framed over strung squares
were more than two and a half times the size of Zumpe's wood framed
instruments that were successful a century before, their overwhelming
popularity was due to inexpensive construction and price, with performance
and sonority frequently restricted by single actions and double stringing.

The
tall vertically strung upright grand was arranged with the
soundboard and bridges perpendicular to keys, and above them so that the
strings did not extend to the floor. Diagonally strung Giraffe, pyramid
and lyre pianos employed this principle in more evocatively shaped
cases. The term was later revived by many manufacturers for advertising
purposes.

The
very tall cabinet piano introduced by Southwell in 1806 and built
through the 1840s had strings arranged vertically on a continuous frame
with bridges extended nearly to the floor, behind the keyboard and very
large sticker action.

The
short cottage upright or pianino with vertical stringing,
credited to Robert Wornum about 1810 was built into the 20th century. They
are informally called birdcage pianos because of their prominent
damper mechanism. Pianinos were distinguished from the oblique, or
diagonally strung upright made popular in France by Roller & Blanchet
during the late 1820s.

The
tiny over strung spinet upright had a compact full iron frame and a
so-called drop action arranged below the level of the keys. Spinet
pianos were first manufactured in the mid-1930s. These smaller pianos are
well suited for people who live in smaller houses or apartments, and their
lighter weight makes them easier to move. Spinet pianos, however, have
their drawbacks. The drop-action and shorter keys make it harder for a
pianist to have dynamic control while playing, and the shorter strings
result in a less wide range of harmonics. A few piano technicians will not
even service spinet pianos as their drop-action design makes them
difficult to work on. At present, very few companies are making spinet
pianos.

Piano
history and musical performance

The
huge changes in the evolution of the piano have somewhat vexing
consequences for musical performance. The problem is that much of the most
widely admired piano repertoire — for example, that of Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven —
was composed for a type of instrument that is rather different from the
modern instruments on which this music is normally performed today. Even
the music of the Romantics, including Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms,
was written for pianos substantially different from ours. The
interpretation of these works on modern pianos poses a variety of
problems": for discussion, see Piano history and musical performance.

The
modern piano

Types

Modern
pianos come in two basic configurations and several sizes: the grand piano
and the upright piano.

Grand
pianos have the frame and strings placed horizontally, with the
strings extending away from the keyboard. This makes the grand piano a
large instrument, for which the ideal setting is a spacious room with high
ceilings for proper resonance. There are several sizes of grand piano.
Manufacturers and models vary, but a rough generalisation distinguishes
the "concert grand", (between about 2.2 m to 3 m long)
from the "boudoir grand" (about 1.7 m to 2.2 m) and
the smaller "baby grand" (which may be shorter than it is wide).
All else being equal, longer pianos have better sound and lower
inharmonicity of the strings. This is so that the strings can be tuned
closer to equal temperament in relation to the standard pitch with less
stretching. Full-size grands are usually used for public concerts, whereas
baby grands are often chosen for domestic use where space and cost are
considerations.

Upright pianos, also called vertical pianos, are more
compact because the frame and strings are placed vertically, extending in
both directions from the keyboard and hammers. It is considered harder to
produce a sensitive piano action when the hammers move horizontally,
rather than upward against gravity as in a grand piano; however, the very
best upright pianos now approach the level of grand pianos of the same
size in tone quality and responsiveness. However, one feature of the grand
piano action always makes it superior to the vertical piano. All grand
pianos have a special repetition lever in the playing action that is
absent in all verticals. This repetition lever, a separate one for every
key, catches the hammer close to the strings as long as the key remains
depressed. In this position, with the hammer resting on the lever, a
pianist can play repeated notes, staccato, and trills with much more speed
and control than they could on a vertical piano. The action design of a
vertical prevents it from having a repetition lever. Because of this,
piano manufacturers claim that a skilled piano player can play as many as
14 trill (music) notes per second on grands but only seven on uprights.
For recent advances, see Innovations in the piano.

In
1863, Henri Fourneaux invented the player piano, a kind of piano which
"plays itself" from a piano roll without the need for a pianist.
Also in the 19th century, toy pianos began to be manufactured.

A
relatively recent development is the prepared piano, which is simply a
standard grand piano which has had objects placed inside it before a
performance in order to alter its sound, or which has had its mechanism
changed in some way.

Since
the 1980s, digital pianos have been available, which use digital sampling
technology to reproduce the sound of each piano note. The best digital
pianos are sophisticated, with features including working pedals, weighted
keys, multiple voices, and MIDI interfaces. However, with current
technology, it remains difficult to duplicate a crucial aspect of acoustic
pianos, namely that when the damper pedal (see below) is depressed, the
strings not struck vibrate sympathetically when other strings are struck
as well as the unique instrument-specific mathematical non-linearity of
partials on any given unison. Since this sympathetic vibration is
considered central to a beautiful piano tone, in many experts' estimation
digital pianos still do not compete with the best acoustic pianos in tone
quality. Progress is being made in this area by including physical models
of sympathetic vibration in the synthesis software.

Keyboard

For
the arrangement of the keys on a piano keyboard, see Musical
keyboard. This arrangement was inherited from the harpsichord without
change, with the trivial exception of the colour scheme (white for notes
in the C major scale and black for other notes) which became standard for
pianos in the late 18th century.

Almost
every modern piano has 88 keys (seven octaves plus a minor third, from A0
to C8). Many older pianos only have 85 keys (seven octaves from A0 to A7),
while some manufacturers extend the range further in one or both
directions. The most notable example of an extended range can be found on
Bösendorfer pianos, two models which extend the normal range downwards to
F0, with one other model going as far as a bottom C0, making a full eight
octave range. Sometimes, these extra keys are hidden under a small hinged
lid, which can be flipped down to cover the keys and avoid visual
disorientation in a pianist unfamiliar with the extended keyboard; on
others, the colours of the extra white keys are reversed (black instead of
white). The extra keys are added primarily for increased resonance; that
is, they vibrate sympathetically with other strings whenever the damper
pedal is depressed and thus give a fuller tone. Only a very small number
of works composed for piano actually use these notes. More recently, the
Stuart and Sons company has also manufactured extended-range pianos. On
their instruments, the range is extended both down the bass to F0 and up
the treble to F8 for a full eight octaves. The extra keys are the same as
the other keys in appearance.

Pedals

Pianos
have had pedals, or some close equivalent, since the earliest days.
(In the 18th century, some pianos used levers pressed upward by the
player's knee instead of pedals.) The three pedals that have become more
or less standard on the modern piano are the following.

The
damper pedal (also called the sustaining pedal or loud
pedal) is often simply called "the pedal", since it is the
most frequently used. It is placed as the rightmost pedal in the group.
Every string on the piano, except the top two octaves, is equipped with a
damper, which is a padded device that prevents the string from vibrating.
The damper is raised off the string whenever the key for that note is
pressed. When the damper pedal is pressed, all the dampers on the piano
are lifted at once, so that every string can vibrate. This serves two
purposes. First, it assists the pianist in producing a legato
(playing smoothly connected notes) in passages where no fingering is
available to make this otherwise possible. Second, raising the damper
pedal causes all the strings to vibrate sympathetically with whichever
notes are being played, which greatly enriches the piano's tone.

Sensitive
pedaling is one of the techniques a pianist must master, since piano music
from Chopin onwards tends to benefit from extensive use of the sustaining
pedal, both as a means of achieving a singing tone and as an aid to legato.
In contrast, the sustaining pedal was used only sparingly by the composers
of the 18th century, including Haydn, Mozart and in early works by
Beethoven; in that era, pedalling was considered primarily as a special
coloristic effect.

The
soft pedal or "una corda" pedal is placed leftmost in the
row of pedals. On a grand piano, this pedal shifts the whole action
including the keyboard slightly to the right, so that hammers that
normally strike all three of the strings for a note strike only two of
them. This softens the note and modifies its tone quality. For notation of
the soft pedal in printed music, see Italian musical terms.

The
soft pedal was invented by Cristofori and thus appeared on the very
earliest pianos. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the soft pedal was
more effective than today, since it was possible at that time to use it to
strike three, two or even just one string per note— this is the origin
of the name "una corda", Italian for "one string". In
modern pianos, the strings are spaced too closely to permit a true "una
corda" effect — if shifted far enough to strike just one
string on one note, the hammers would hit the string of the next note.

On
many upright pianos, the soft pedal operates a mechanism, which moves the
hammers' resting position closer to the strings. Since the hammers have
less distance to travel this reduces the speed at which they hit the
strings, and hence the volume is reduced, but this does not change tone
quality in the way the "una corda" pedal does on a grand piano.

Digital
pianos often use this pedal to alter the sound to that of another
instrument such as the organ, guitar, or harmonica. Pitch bends, leslie
speaker on/off, vibrato modulation, etc. increase the already-great
versatility of such instruments.

The
sostenuto pedal or "middle pedal" keeps raised any damper
that was raised at the moment the pedal is depressed. This makes it
possible to sustain some notes (by depressing the sostenuto pedal before
notes to be sustained are released) while the player's hands are free to
play other notes. This can be useful for musical passages with pedal
points and other otherwise tricky or impossible situations. The sostenuto
pedal was the last of the three pedals to be added to the standard piano,
and to this day, many pianos are not equipped with a sostenuto pedal.
(Almost all modern grand pianos have a sostenuto pedal, while most upright
pianos do not.) A number of twentieth-century works specifically call for
the use of this pedal, for example Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue
d'oiseaux.

Some
upright pianos have a practice pedal or celeste pedal in
place of the sostenuto. This pedal, which can usually be locked in place
by depressing it and pushing it to one side, drops a strip of felt between
the hammers and the keys so that all the notes are greatly muted —
a handy feature for those who wish to practice in domestic surroundings
without disturbing the neighbours. The practice pedal is rarely used in
performance. Other uprights have a bass sustain as a middle pedal.
It works like the damper pedal, but only lifts the dampers for the
lowest notes.

The
rare transposing piano, of which Irving Berlin possessed an example, uses
the middle pedal as a clutch which disengages the keyboard from the
mechanism, enabling the keyboard to be moved to left or right with a
lever. The entire action of the piano is thus shifted to allow the pianist
to play music written in one key so that it sounds in a different key.

Pedal
piano

Entirely
distinct from any of the above uses of pedals is the provision of a pedal
keyboard, enabling notes to be played with the feet as is standard on the
pipe organ. The pedal board may be an integral part of the instrument,
using the same strings and mechanism as the manual keyboard, or a
self-contained (and sometimes detachable) unit. The resulting instrument
is termed a pedal piano. Mozart is known to have used such an
instrument, and a small but significant repertoire was produced for it in
the nineteenth century by such composers as Schumann and Alkan. The
instrument remains a rarity, however, being used less for its distinctive
pianistic potential than as a device to enable organists to practise at
home. [1][2]

Materials

Many
parts of a piano are made of materials selected for extreme sturdiness. In
quality pianos, the outer rim of the piano is made of a hardwood,
normally maple or beech. According to Harold A. Conklin, the purpose of a
sturdy rim is so that "the vibrational energy will stay as much as
possible in the soundboard instead of dissipating uselessly in the case
parts, which are inefficient radiators of sound." The rim is normally
made by laminating flexible strips of hardwood to the desired shape, a
system that was developed by Theodore Steinway in 1880.

The
thick wooden braces at the bottom (grands) or back (uprights) of
the piano are not as acoustically important as the rim, and are often made
of a softwood, even in top-quality pianos, in order to save weight.

The
pinblock, which holds the tuning pins in place, is another area of
the piano where toughness is important. It is made of hardwood, and
generally is laminated (built of multiple layers) for additional strength
and gripping power.

Piano
strings (also called piano wire), which must endure years of
extreme tension and hard blows, are made of high quality steel. They are
manufactured to vary as little as possible in diameter, since all
deviations from uniformity introduce tonal distortion. The bass strings of
a piano are made of a steel core wrapped with copper wire, to increase
their flexibility. For the acoustic reasons behind this, see Piano
acoustics.

The
plate, or metal frame, of a piano is usually made of cast iron. It
is advantageous for the plate to be quite massive. Since the strings are
attached to the plate at one end, any vibrations transmitted to the plate
will result in loss of energy to the desired (efficient) channel of sound
transmission, namely the bridge and the soundboard. Some manufacturers now
use cast steel in their plates, for greater strength. The casting of the
plate is a delicate art, since the dimensions are crucial and the iron
shrinks by about one percent during cooling. The inclusion in a piano of
an extremely large piece of metal is potentially an aesthetic handicap.
Piano makers overcome this handicap by polishing, painting, and decorating
the plate; often plates include the manufacturer's ornamental medallion
and can be strikingly attractive.

The
numerous grand parts and upright parts of a piano action are
generally hardwood (e.g. maple, beech. hornbeam). However, since World
War II, plastics have become available. Early plastics were
incorporated into some pianos in the late 1940s and 1950s, but proved
disastrous because they crystallized and lost their strength after only a
few decades of use. The Steinway firm once incorporated Teflon, a
synthetic material developed by DuPont, for some grand action parts in
place of cloth, but ultimately abandoned the experiment due to an inherent
"clicking" which invariably developed over time. More recently,
the Kawai firm has built pianos with action parts made of more modern and
effective plastics such as carbon fiber; these parts have held up better
and have generally received the respect of piano technicians.

View
from below of a 182-cm grand piano. In order of distance from viewer:
softwood braces, tapered soundboard ribs, soundboard. The metal rod at
lower right is a humidity control device

The
part of the piano where materials probably matter more than anywhere else
is the soundboard. In quality pianos, this is made of solid spruce
(that is, spruce boards glued together at their edges). Spruce is chosen
for its high ratio of strength to weight. The best piano makers use
close-grained, quarter-sawn, defect-free spruce, and make sure that it has
been carefully dried over a long period of time before making it into
soundboards. In cheap pianos, the soundboard is often made of plywood.

Piano
keys are generally made of spruce or basswood, for lightness.
Spruce is normally used in high-quality pianos. Traditionally, the black
keys were made from ebony and the white keys were covered with strips of
ivory, but since ivory-yielding species are now endangered and protected
by treaty, plastics are now almost exclusively used. Legal ivory can still
be obtained in limited quantities. At one time, the Yamaha firm innovated
a plastic called "Ivorine" or "Ivorite", since
imitated by other makers, that mimics the look and feel of ivory.

Care
and maintenance

Pianos
are regularly tuned to keep them up to pitch and produce a pleasing
sound; by convention they are tuned to the internationally recognised
standard concert pitch of A = 440 Hz.

The
hammers of pianos are voiced to compensate for gradual hardening.
Top-quality but aged pianos can be restored or reconditioned,
by replacing a great number of their parts to produce an instrument
closely similar to a new one.

The
role of the piano

The
piano is a crucial instrument in Western classical music, jazz, film,
television and electronic game music, and most other complex western
musical genres. Since a large number of composers are proficient pianists,
the piano is often used as a tool for composition.

Pianos
were, and are, popular instruments for private household ownership,
especially among the middle and upper classes. Hence, pianos have gained a
place in the popular consciousness, and are sometimes referred to by
nicknames including: "the ivories", "the joanna",
"the eighty-eight", and "the black(s) and white(s)".
Playing the piano is sometimes referred to as "tickling the
ivories".

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If
you have a comment or question about anything related to Gibson Musical
Instruments send an email to service@gibson.com.
We'll do our best to respond within 24 hours. You can reach the GMI
Customer Support staff 24 hours a day by calling 1-800-4-GIBSON
(1-800-444-2766).
Gibson's Customer Service in Europe, call 00 800 4GIBSON1
(00+800-444-2766-1)